The unofficial, unauthorized view of Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org. The Ancestry Insider reports on, defends, and constructively criticizes these two websites and associated topics. The author attempts to fairly and evenly support both.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Genealogist or Gossip

If they don't depend on true evidence, scientists [including genealogists] are no better than gossips.

Penelope Fitzgerald

In the example presented in “Evidence Management Explained” we saw that the big payoff of using evidence management occurs when a conclusion is drawn. Drawing from the example of Angeline née Clements Goldsmith again, suppose a week or more passed between discovering and entering each piece of evidence. As each piece of evidence about her birth is entered, we might well revisit our conclusion about her birth date. Each time we click to edit the birth date, the evidence manager displays a conclusion entry window.

For convenience I have reproduced the conclusion entry window from the example. I have incorporated most of your feedback. If I didn’t get yours, remember that this example is only conceptual.

To have a 1 yr old younger sibling in 1850, Angeline must have been born in 1848.

Conclusion for Birth date:

5 February 1848

Reasoning:

It is clear that the earliest records have the correct birth year. While there is no collaborating evidence for the day and month, there is currently no reason to doubt it.

How do the vendors do with conclusion entry? Here is what I found:

Features

Ancestry.com

FamilySearch.org

Footnote.com

Conclusion entry facilitates intelligent conclusions by design.

No

No

No

Pertinent assertions from all relevant evidence summaries are gathered together and displayed in one place.

Yes-ish

Yes

Yes (but not grouped together) if a person page is considered a conclusionary person, but no if the person page is an evidentiary person

To encourage critical thinking, notes can be entered for each piece of evidence and for the conclusion.

Yes-ish

Yes-ish

Yes-ish

Evidence is automatically selected for analysis based upon the conclusion type. For a birth date conclusion, evidence about age and birth date are automatically displayed.

No

Yes

Yes (but not grouped together) if a person page is considered a conclusionary person, but no if the person page is an evidentiary person

The user can manually select other evidence.

No

No

All evidence is displayed in all cases.

Attributes are displayed for each piece of evidence and its source. For the source, these might include: original or derivative, derivative type, recording date, and recorder. For the evidence, these might include: informant, primary or secondary, direct or indirect, and supportive or contradictory.

No

No

No

I realize these tables are barely better than nothing. I need to display some screen shots from each of these products to illustrating what I’m talking about. I had planned to start those today, but articles for Wednesday and Friday caused a digression and my weekend is over. Stay tuned…

And just so you (the vendors) know, I’m always open to answer questions you may have regarding evidence management… no extra charge.

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The Ancestry Insider is consistently a top ten and readers’ choice award winner. He has been an insider at both the two big genealogy organizations, FamilySearch and Ancestry.com. He was Time Magazine Man of the Year in both 1966 and 2006. And he really is descended from an Indian princess.

Dear Ancestry Insider, So, does Ancestry.com have access to the information I contribute to FamilySearch.org, like photos, stories, and Fami...

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The Ancestry Insider was a readers’ choice for the top four genealogy news and resources blogs, part of Family Tree Magazine’s “40 Best Genealogy Blogs” for 2010. He reports on the two big genealogy organizations, Ancestry.com and FamilySearch. He was named a “Most Popular Genealogy Blogs” by ProGenealogists, and has received Family Tree Magazine’s “101 Best Web Sites” award every year since 2008. A genealogical technologist, the Insider has a post-graduate technology degree and holds a dozen technology patents in the United States and abroad. He has done genealogy since 1972 and has worked in the computer industry since 1978. He was Time Magazine Man of the Year in both 1966 and 2006. And he really is descended from an Indian princess.

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